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Snowden Granted Temporary Asylum In Russia

228px-Picture_of_Edward_SnowdenIt is now confirmed that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has been granted temporary asylum in Russia and has left Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International airport. The United States continues to threaten any country that grants Snowden asylum and has been successful in pressuring U.S. media never to refer to him as a whistleblower. While MSNBC hosts mock Snowden and express disbelief why he doesn’t just trust that Obama will give him a fair trial, there is little reason for Snowden to trust those assurances when a president is claiming the right to kill citizens without trial, send some people to military tribunals, and routinely uses classification laws to force the dismissal of public interest lawsuits. What’s not to trust?


Polls show roughly half of Russian citizens support Snowden and support asylum.

For Snowden, he may not see a good option. They just finishing the Manning trial where they pursued an abusive “aiding the enemy” charge without a foundation of evidence to support such a charge. He is looking at life in prison even after being acquitted on the charge. In the meantime, on America’s Animal Farm, only members of the ruling elite are allowed to steal and destroy classified evidence without going to jail.

Snowden would face classification laws limiting his defense and laws written to require little showing for conviction. The Administration is infamous for count stacking where they pile on dozens and even hundreds of counts to guarantee life in prison.

Snowden has embarrassed powerful leaders in the United States and showed that they have been lying to the public. This includes not only Obama but top Democrats. They want Snowden punished for their sins.

In such an environment, Russia may look pretty darn good to Snowden.

Source: ABC News

65 thoughts on “Snowden Granted Temporary Asylum In Russia”

  1. If Snowdon doesn’t mind the cold, I’d suggest he head for Mongolia which borders Russia. If wikipedia has any credibility (yeah, right), then the US and Mongolia have no extradition treaty. And unlike the US, Mongolia has quickly become a stable multiparty democracy with free speech. It’s certainly a better choice than Russia.

  2. My half blind guy human pal and I were at the computer desk. He had just written an email to his tenant about a plumbing problem and had not even sent the email. These ads for plumbers show up on the right side of the screen. If you punch the button which says Why This Ad it explains that they read your email and then provide a plumber for you. So, I guess the way to find the al Qaeda in this country is to say in an email or a post on this blog that you need a Muslim Bro. Time will tell.

    One of the political commentators in the 50s or 60s made the comment that the communist countries and the capitalist countries were on the path to “convergence”– that the communist countries would become more capitalist and the West would become more dictatorial. It might have been John Maynard Krebs, I mean Keynes. Who was it and was the tract in which that concept was written? Inquiring dogs want to know.

    Stalin is laughing in his grave. Ben Franklin is crying in his. The word Amerika has come to fruition. Think about what Dick Cheney knew about Anthony Weener and his girl friends back when Bushie was in office. Email ich schmuckmail.

  5. Russia’s Top Social Network Under Fire

    By Tom Balmforth

    May 28, 2013

    http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-vkontakte-under-fire/24999478.html

    Excerpt:

    Russia’s leading social network isn’t just a place where friends connect, make plans, and share experiences. It’s also one of the main platforms the opposition has used to organize its activities across the country’s far-flung regions.

    The State Telecom Regulator said VKontakte was placed on the blacklist, which is designed to root out sites that illegally promote child pornography, “by accident” and the that site was soon back online.

    But Oleg Kozyrev, a media analyst and opposition blogger, suggests that the “accidental” blocklisting had a purpose.

    “I would call what is happening at the moment a lesson, in the bad sense,” Kozyrev says. “It’s an attempt to teach the Russian online community to be more compliant, less independent, and more deferential.”

    Kozyrev and other online activists have long suggested that the blacklist law, ostensibly designed to protect children, can easily be abused to harass and ultimately shut down any website that is problematic to the authorities.

    Moreover, VKontakte’s brief blacklisting was just the latest in a series of incidents that have befallen the social network in recent months. Some observers say VKontakte is facing a targeted campaign to rein in the social network and clip the wings of its maverick CEO.

  6. I believe that this is all about the huge civil unrest which the Upper Class know full well is on the horizon.
    Every protester will be branded as a “Domestic Terrorist”.
    It stuns me that no one within mainstream media have spoken about this program being implemented as a method of control and as a means of gathering evidence to use in courtrooms as protesters are charged with civil unrest. All information will be used to show a “Pattern” and will be used to track down everyone associated with the arrested protester in an attempt to entice friends and associates of the accused protester to become an informant and to testify against the protester in court.
    Every step ….. every court appearance over the past 10 years is not so much to implement justice but to create legal precedents and in preparation for thousands of protesters being arrested as the economy continues to crumble.
    The futurists with government recognized as far back as 1980 (when Free Trade was introduced) that there was no way that the U.S. Capitalists could honor the promises made to the working class since the end of WWII. Free Trade allowed the Capitalists the unfettered ability to move all assets and wealth offshore and out of reach to anyone wanting to sue in lieu of broken promises and loss of pensions, etc.
    http://www.dotandcalm.com/calm-archive/EconomicNotes.html

    I believe that this is the first song about Edward Snowden

    Every Call You Make
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCiSTah4Dik

    Calm

  7. From what I understand about the Russian const….. It is almost identical to our….. Hmmmm….. Wonder what went wrong here….. I think his safety in Russian is safer than in SA where we’ve been known to conduct renditions….. Just saying…. Plus… The Sct said when the Noriega was contesting his illegal arrest…. That the 4th amendment has no applicability outside the US…. Hmmm…. Seems like that’s true here as well…..

  10. Good for Mr. Snowden.

    We all owe him thanks for forcing the NSA spying into the open.

    While we are not yet having an honest debate (our “leaders” will not allow it), at least we are catching glimpses of what is being done to us.

  11. “Of course VK wants Snowden … smart business sense.”

    Blouise,

    Yep.

  12. ap,

    Regarding your link … VK … our government has put our internet service companies in real trouble. Europeans are not going to want to use gmail, hotmail, etc due to privacy concerns and these companies are required by U S law to gather the info. European corporations are going to switch platforms for the very same reasons..The United States government will have effectively destroyed the success of all our internet operations like Facebook etc.outside the U S borders.

    Of course VK wants Snowden … smart business sense.

  14. A job for Snowden with VK?

    “We invite Edward Snowden to Saint Petersburg and we’ll be happy if he decides to join the star-team of VKontakte programmers,” the network’s founder, Pavel Durov, wrote on his VK page. “After all, VK is the most popular European Internet company. I think it’ll be interesting for Edward to be engaged in the protection of the personal data of our users.” (from http://rt.com/usa/nsa-leak-snowden-live-updates-482/)

  15. The whole Snowden story is so convoluted, and has led me to believe there is no country that truly grants freedom to its citizens anymore. The USA, land of the free and home of the brave, wants to prosecute him for revealing that it spies on its own citizens, so he goes to that bastion of liberty known as Russia–where if were gay, the only “asylum” he’d be granted is in a prison cell. What a farce.

  17. “The lawyer said Snowden was expected to stay in an undisclosed location, adding that the fugitive leaker feared for his safety. He reportedly left the airport in a taxi, accompanied by Sarah Harrison of the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks, who traveled with him to Moscow from Hong Kong. ” –ABC article

    Let’s hope that nothing happens to Snowden. These are perilous times in one f’d up world.

  18. Comment in moderation? (Yes, one of the forbidden words, but I disguised it…)

  19. “The lawyer said Snowden was expected to stay in an undisclosed location, adding that the fugitive leaker feared for his safety. He reportedly left the airport in a taxi, accompanied by Sarah Harrison of the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks, who traveled with him to Moscow from Hong Kong.” – ABC article

    Let’s hope that nothing happens to him. Perilous times in this f***ked up world.

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